Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 23: In order to ensure speedy disposal of cases by all the courts in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, Acting Chief Justice of High Court Justice Rajesh Bindal has chalked out Action Plan for the year 2021-22.
The Action Plan has been chalked out after deeply analyzing the situation vis-à-vis pendency of cases in various courts in both the Union Territories.
According to the circular issued by Registrar General Jawad Ahmed, District and Sessions Judges and Additional Districts & Sessions Judges will dispose of 25 oldest Executive Petitions and decide and dispose of by 30th September, 2021, all civil original suits and other civil matters which have been filed on or before 31.03.2014.
Moreover, they shall decide and dispose of all civil miscellaneous appeals which are more than 1 Year old; decide and dispose of by or before 30th September, 2021, all regular appeals which are more than seven years old; decide and dispose of by or before 30th September, 2021, all cases of under trials where the accused are in custody for more than 5 years and also all criminal revisions which are more than 1 year old.
Further, they have been directed to decide and dispose of all criminal challans (irrespective of involvement of under trials) where charge sheet has been filed on or before 31.03.2014 and decide and dispose of by or before 30th November, 2021 all criminal appeals which are more than 3 years old.
According to the circular, the Special Courts set up under Prevention of Corruption Act and Special Courts set up under Prevention of Corruption Act for CBI cases, shall decide and dispose of ten oldest cases, in addition to normal standards. The Special Courts set up for crime against women have been asked to decide and dispose of by October 31, 2021 all cases where the accused are in custody for more than two years.
Similarly, Special Courts set up under POCSO Act have been directed to decide and dispose of by 30th June, 2021, all cases which are more than 1 year old and the accused are in custody. Likewise, Special Courts set up under NIA Act have been directed to decide and dispose of 10 oldest cases.
The High Court has further directed that all cases/applications where interim stay orders have been passed shall be decided within one month of the passing of interim order and the bail applications shall be decided within a week in terms of Supreme Court order in Hussain and Another Versus Union of India.
“Endeavour shall be made to dispose of old cases during current year up to 31st March, 2021. However, because of the prevailing conditions due to COVID-19 pandemic, the monitoring to strictly follow the action plan will be made from 1st April, 2021”, the High Court said, adding “pendency of target cases be taken as on 31st March, 2021 and the cases disposed of since that day falling in the target cases be included in the disposal list”.
“The cases, in which proceedings have been stayed, are not to be included in the list and in case the stay is vacated during the currency of the Action Plan then the same be included in the list of Action Plan cases”, High Court said.
The District & Sessions Judges shall, in consultation with Administrative Judge, distribute and allocate the cases targeted under Action Plan 2021-22 equally amongst the Judicial Officers to ensure that the oldest cases in the Sessions Division are properly targeted and they shall manage the work by using their administrative skills.
The District & Sessions Judge shall ensure uploading of the court wise list of cases identified under Action Plan 2021-22 along with stage of the case on the web-site of the Sessions Court within one week from the date of receipt of the communication and also updating of the status of such cases on monthly basis latest by 10th of every month. The District and Sessions Judge shall ensure that the list of Action Plan cases is not changed except under his orders.
It has further asked that in case any officer proceeds on long leave or resigns or is transferred during the period from 1st April, 2021 to 31st March, 2022 and no substitute is provided in place of such officer or in the event of amalgamation or withdrawal of a court, the District & Sessions Judge shall transfer the pending Action Plan cases in such court equally amongst all other judicial officers and exclude the rest of the pending targeted cases of the said officer and the lists of Action Plan cases of such transferee Court(s) shall be modified in proportion accordingly.
In case an additional judicial officer joins during the currency of Action Plan, then the District & Sessions Judge shall fix the proportionate target under Action Plan for the officer in consultation with the Administrative Judge from other oldest cases out of the remaining cases not included in the Action Plan 202122 earlier and the target for the Sessions Division be also modified accordingly.
The District & Sessions Judge shall submit the court wise figures of disposal of targeted cases selected under Action Plan 2021-22 to the High Court on monthly basis on or before 10th of eveiy month for placing the same before Administrative Judge of the concerned district.
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